Remember 'Space Pirate Captain Harlock'?

The work of manga artist Leiji
Matsumoto mixes historical periods, themes and technologies, often in a
science-fiction setting: His signature comics involve steam locomotives and
reborn World War II battleships sailing among the stars. These grand flights of
fancy, which have found fans around the world, become even more magical when
transposed into a traditional Japanese art form, such as ukiyo-e, the “pictures
of the floating world” from Japan’s Edo Period (1603-1868).

Matsumoto, 79, recently collaborated
on a series of old-school woodblock prints with a modern twist in the form of
his own characters and vehicles. In one, the titular romantic hero of “Space
Pirate Captain Harlock” poses in samurai armor before Kumamoto Castle under the
light of an oversized moon. In another, the mysterious Maetel from “Galaxy
Express 999” is depicted in a classic Kyoto scene of flowers, golden clouds and
a pagoda. Another carving features Harlock’s ship Arcadia sailing over
Katsushika Hokusai’s “Great Wave off Kanagawa” with a ringed planet in the
background.

The six works were made in limited
sets of 1,000 prints and are selling from ¥95,000 each; part of the proceeds go
to Kumamoto quake recovery efforts. The woodblock prints were produced in
collaboration with Kyoto-based woodblock studio Takezasado, Team Hirota, a
creative group led by Takeshi Hirota, and Living National Treasure Ichibei
Iwano IX, a washi paper master.

“It’s wonderful to be able to enter
the world of ukiyo-e, which is something handed down from days of old,”
Matsumoto, sporting his trademark skull-and-bones cap, says in an interview at
the Sumida Hokusai Museum in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward. “I became a big fan of
Hokusai’s manga at an early age and it had a significant impact on my work.
Actually, ukiyo-e works have an established atmosphere, so I was worried about
ruining this genre with my own work.”

Matsumoto is no stranger to
collaborations. In 2001, he teamed up with French electronic music group Daft
Punk to produce an animated feature based on their album “Discovery.” Last
year, he did a joint exhibition at the Kobe Artists Museum with his wife Miyako
Maki, a former manga artist known for creating Licca-chan, the popular dress-up
doll.

Born in Fukuoka in 1938, Matsumoto
grew up during the war, which profoundly colored his oeuvre. He began drawing
manga at age 5, and won a Manga Shonen Best New Writer prize in 1954. He
achieved superstardom in the 1970s with titles such as “Space Battleship
Yamato,” a sci-fi epic centering on humanity’s war against invading aliens and
the resurrection of the legendary battleship Yamato as a spaceship. Matsumoto
also penned shōjo (girls’) manga and comics about the war. He even
designed the popular Sumida River pleasure boat Himiko, known for its sleek
lines. History, the origins and future of humanity and the environment have
always been prominent themes.

“When I was a child, and indeed
throughout my life, I was always thinking and reading about the Earth and
sentient beings in the past, present and future,” Matsumoto says. “I grew up
watching many American cartoons like Mickey Mouse and movies, especially ‘Gone
With the Wind,’ and that memorable scene in which Scarlett O’Hara swears, ‘I’ll
never be hungry again.'”

Fate and individual struggle have
been strong motifs for Matsumoto. He recalls how manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka,
who was 10 years his senior, happened to see the 1943 Disneyesque anime “The
Spider and the Tulip,” Japan’s first musical animation, on the same day and
time as him. Both young artists would go on to produce works inspired by
insects and also become science fiction legends.

Matsumoto, his eye always on
other worlds, says he still believes that intelligent aliens once lived on
Venus, left traces of cities behind and may have fled to Earth long ago. They
may have been ancestors of the human race, he says.

It’s at this point that I notice
Matsumoto’s eyes are blue. A sign of alien, or at least foreign, ancestry?

“I hadn’t noticed,” he says with a
laugh. “My grandfather had a bit of blue in his eyes, too. After I created the
character Maetel, I researched my family history, and in a temple next to my
home I found a daguerreotype of an ancestor who looked and dressed just like
her. This genetic memory is formidable.”

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About Me

This is a blog about what interests me. Here you will find stories on animals, including animal rights material, cute stuff, and random informative posts about weird, beautiful and interesting creatures. Horses, Spotted Hyenas, and Border Collies will make regular appearances.
Also prominently featured will be posts about the Arts. Animation, photography, and the traditional forms, plus "outsider art," film and books.
Other things that will surface here are Japan & the Japanese, John Oliver, surfing, skateboarding and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, interesting places and structures,and my own art, writing and photography.
There will be rants. It's an election year, and I am beginning to have a political dimension to my personality. I am also horrified at the level of injustice and violence visited upon people here in the US and elsewhere - particularly against people of color, immigrants, and the LGBT community. Some of these stories will be very hard to read, but I believe we must read them to keep ourselves mindful of the racist and vicious things that happen every day, to speak out when we see discrimination, and root out its evil from ourselves.